STOP! If you're just getting started writing tests, have a look at Test::Simple first. This is a drop in replacement for Test::Simple which you can switch to once you get the hang of basic testing.

The purpose of this module is to provide a wide range of testing utilities. Various ways to say "ok" with better diagnostics, facilities to skip tests, test future features and compare complicated data structures. While you can do almost anything with a simple ok() function, it doesn't provide good diagnostic output.

Before anything else, you need a testing plan. This basically declares how many tests your script is going to run to protect against premature failure.

The preferred way to do this is to declare a plan when you use Test::More.

use Test::More tests => $Num_Tests;

There are rare cases when you will not know beforehand how many tests your script is going to run. In this case, you can declare that you have no plan. (Try to avoid using this as it weakens your test.)

use Test::More qw(no_plan);

In some cases, you'll want to completely skip an entire testing script.

use Test::More skip_all => $skip_reason;

Your script will declare a skip with the reason why you skipped and exit immediately with a zero (success). See Test::Harness for details.

If you want to control what functions Test::More will export, you have to use the 'import' option. For example, to import everything but 'fail', you'd do:

use Test::More tests => 23, import => ['!fail'];

Alternatively, you can use the plan() function. Useful for when you have to calculate the number of tests.

$test_name is a very short description of the test that will be printed out. It makes it very easy to find a test in your script when it fails and gives others an idea of your intentions. $test_name is optional, but we very strongly encourage its use.

So why use these? They produce better diagnostics on failure. ok() cannot know what you are testing for (beyond the name), but is() and isnt() know what the test was and why it failed. For example this test:

The second argument is a regular expression. It may be given as a regex reference (i.e. qr//) or (for better compatibility with older perls) as a string that looks like a regex (alternative delimiters are currently not supported):

like( $this, '/that/', 'this is like that' );

Regex options may be placed on the end ('/that/i').

Its advantages over ok() are similar to that of is() and isnt(). Better diagnostics on failure.

Sometimes you just want to say that the tests have passed. Usually the case is you've got some complicated condition that is difficult to wedge into an ok(). In this case, you can simply use pass() (to declare the test ok) or fail (for not ok). They are synonyms for ok(1) and ok(0).

If you pick the right test function, you'll usually get a good idea of what went wrong when it failed. But sometimes it doesn't work out that way. So here we have ways for you to write your own diagnostic messages which are safer than just print STDERR.

These simply use the given $module and test to make sure the load happened ok. It's recommended that you run use_ok() inside a BEGIN block so its functions are exported at compile-time and prototypes are properly honored.

Sometimes running a test under certain conditions will cause the test script to die. A certain function or method isn't implemented (such as fork() on MacOS), some resource isn't available (like a net connection) or a module isn't available. In these cases it's necessary to skip tests, or declare that they are supposed to fail but will work in the future (a todo test).

For more details on the mechanics of skip and todo tests see Test::Harness.

The way Test::More handles this is with a named block. Basically, a block of tests which can be skipped over or made todo. It's best if I just show you...

If the user does not have HTML::Lint installed, the whole block of code won't be run at all. Test::More will output special ok's which Test::Harness interprets as skipped, but passing, tests. It's important that $how_many accurately reflects the number of tests in the SKIP block so the # of tests run will match up with your plan.

It's perfectly safe to nest SKIP blocks. Each SKIP block must have the label SKIP, or Test::More can't work its magic.

You don't skip tests which are failing because there's a bug in your program, or for which you don't yet have code written. For that you use TODO. Read on.

With a todo block, the tests inside are expected to fail. Test::More will run the tests normally, but print out special flags indicating they are "todo". Test::Harness will interpret failures as being ok. Should anything succeed, it will report it as an unexpected success. You then know the thing you had todo is done and can remove the TODO flag.

The nice part about todo tests, as opposed to simply commenting out a block of tests, is it's like having a programmatic todo list. You know how much work is left to be done, you're aware of what bugs there are, and you'll know immediately when they're fixed.

Once a todo test starts succeeding, simply move it outside the block. When the block is empty, delete it.

With todo tests, it's best to have the tests actually run. That way you'll know when they start passing. Sometimes this isn't possible. Often a failing test will cause the whole program to die or hang, even inside an eval BLOCK with and using alarm. In these extreme cases you have no choice but to skip over the broken tests entirely.

The syntax and behavior is similar to a SKIP: BLOCK except the tests will be marked as failing but todo. Test::Harness will interpret them as passing.

If it's something the user might not be able to do, use SKIP. This includes optional modules that aren't installed, running under an OS that doesn't have some feature (like fork() or symlinks), or maybe you need an Internet connection and one isn't available.

If it's something the programmer hasn't done yet, use TODO. This is for any code you haven't written yet, or bugs you have yet to fix, but want to put tests in your testing script (always a good idea).

Similar to is(), except that if $this and $that are hash or array references, it does a deep comparison walking each data structure to see if they are equivalent. If the two structures are different, it will display the place where they start differing.

Barrie Slaymaker's Test::Differences module provides more in-depth functionality along these lines, and it plays well with Test::More.

Sometimes the Test::More interface isn't quite enough. Fortunately, Test::More is built on top of Test::Builder which provides a single, unified backend for any test library to use. This means two test libraries which both use Test::Builder can be used together in the same program.

If you simply want to do a little tweaking of how the tests behave, you can access the underlying Test::Builder object like so:

no_plan and todo depend on new Test::Harness features and fixes. If you're going to distribute tests that use no_plan or todo your end-users will have to upgrade Test::Harness to the latest one on CPAN. If you avoid no_plan and TODO tests, the stock Test::Harness will work fine.

If you simply depend on Test::More, it's own dependencies will cause a Test::Harness upgrade.

This is a case of convergent evolution with Joshua Pritikin's Test module. I was largely unaware of its existence when I'd first written my own ok() routines. This module exists because I can't figure out how to easily wedge test names into Test's interface (along with a few other problems).

The goal here is to have a testing utility that's simple to learn, quick to use and difficult to trip yourself up with while still providing more flexibility than the existing Test.pm. As such, the names of the most common routines are kept tiny, special cases and magic side-effects are kept to a minimum. WYSIWYG.